Raising of third-party funds by research sponsors
In addition to the funding of Open Access publication costs by Freie Universität Berlin, FU members can and should consider applying for third-party funds from national and international research funders. The most important funding opportunities for financing Open Access journal articles are listed below, however, the applicable funding guidlines are binding. Please feel free to contact us for advice if your funding organization is not listed.
According to its Open Access strategy, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) aims at establishing Open Access as the standard for scientific publishing. Researchers are encouraged to publish research results from funded projects in a freely accessible form.
As part of its general project funding, the BMBF supports the financing of open access publications. Related publication costs can be covered by project funds during the term of research projects.
Open Access publications that are published after the end of a project term within the following three years can be financed by the BMBF's Post-Grant Fund. Full funding is provided up to an amount of 2,000 EUR (net) per publication. If the publication costs exceed 2,000 EUR (net), an additional 20% of the surplus amount is funded. The maximum funding amount per publication is 2,400 EUR (net). Applications for the Post-Grant Fund can be submitted at any time using the application form.
The cOAlition S is an alliance of various national and international research funders who are pursuing the goal of achieving open access for publicly funded research through Plan S. These include, for example, the European Commission (EC), international funders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or national research funders such as the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, Austria), the Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR, France), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI, UK) or the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, Switzerland).
Since 2021, open access publications have been mandatory for research projects funded by cOAlition S members. With the Journal Checker Tool, a checking instrument is available that provides information on which OA journals are compatible with the Plan S principles. As a rule, all members of cOAlition S provide financial funding opportunities for Open Access publications. The individual terms can be found in the respective funding guidelines.
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) expects funded projects and researchers to publish research results in an open-access format. The call for open access publishing is laid down in the DFG's general usage guidelines.
With the applications for research projects at the DFG, you can raise a lump-sum payment up to a maximum of 750 Euro per year. These publication funds can be summed over the entire term of the funding (i.e., even beyond one year). Requested personnel and material resources from the same grant may also be used to finance Open Access publications, if required. However, the DFG does not fund applications for lump-sum payments independently of applications for research projects.
Further information can be found on the DFG's Open Access overview page.
The European Commission (EC) and the European Research Council (ERC) oblige funded projects and researchers to publish Open Access in the EU Open Science Policy and in the Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) and Horizon Europe (2021-2027) program guidelines.
An overview of Horizon Europe's framework conditions on the topic of Open Access can be found in the Grant Agreement (cf. p. 108f): Open Access is mandatory for funded research results; journal articles must be published immediately after publication under the Creative Commons CC BY license in a repository listed in OpenDOAR. Open Access publication costs can be funded through project funds, provided that the article is published in an Open Access only journal and meets scientific standards for licensing and the review process.
In addition, Open Research Europe provides funded projects and researchers with a free platform for publishing preprints and conducting open peer review processes.
An overview of existing foundations in Germany can be found in the directories of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany) and the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (Association of German Foundations). For research on the funding of OA publications, search terms such as publication costs, publication grant, publication funds, publication subsidy, printing cost grant, or printing cost subsidy can be used in current search engines.
Various research funding foundations such as the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation or the political foundations award publication grants that can be used to fund OA publications. The funds are usually available in the context of ongoing research projects or can be applied for in addition to these.
Many research funders support an open access to research results and have established open access policies and funding opportunities for open access publications. At the same time particularly international funders such as the European Commission, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (USA) or the Wellcome Trust (UK) expect open access for publications resulting from funded research projects. The SherpaJuliet database lists the world's most important research funders and their OA policies. An overview of the various funding requirements for open access and information on what you as an author should bear in mind can also be found on the open-access.network platform.